Capital vs Liquidity free essay sample

In the context of the events of the last few years just how important is liquidity to the survival and well-being of Financial Institutions? Some believe it has a greater influence on events than Capital! Discuss. (In this assignment you need to outline the role of liquidity, issues arising when liquidity is scarce and compare the role of liquidity to that of Capital but most importantly give your own view on these matters) Role of Liquidity Liquidity can be defined as 1) the ability of a business to meet obligations without disposing of its fixed assets or 2) the degree to which assets of a company can be easily converted into cash. The evolution of banking has seen their balance sheet composition change. The model changed from one of borrowing at low rates and lending high rates with little interest rate or liquidity risk to one where borrowing in the short end and lending in longer maturities. This change created both interest rate risk and liquidity risk. [pic] Figure 1 Liquidity Gap In the early model a 1 month loan at 8% is matched by a 1 month deposit at 5%. The margin is locked in at 3%. The only risk to the bank is credit risk, i. e. that the loan gets repaid. In the modern scenario we have a 150 day loan at 6% funded by a 7 day deposit at 1%. In this example we have credit risk, interest rate risk and liquidity risk. This model facilitates greater margin as it is generally cheaper to borrow in the short term and higher rates available if lending in the longer term. The risks are that in 7 days, where will the borrowing rate be (rate risk) and will the bank be able to borrow (liquidity risk)? The hedging of interest rate risk has been made much easier with the evelopment of interest rate swaps and other derivative items. As these are off balance sheet products, they do not provide liquidity and so the modern model is very susceptible to any problems with liquidity. The interbank cash market is quite sophisticated. International banks can trade with each other very efficiently using many products. †¢ Straight loans and deposits, si mple products of fixed term from overnight up to 1 year. Usually not guaranteed. †¢ Bond repurchase agreements (repos), banks borrow cash and pledge a bond as security against the loan. More secure for the lender than loans and therefore cheaper for the borrower. †¢ Foreign exchange forwards, involves the exchange of one currency for another for a fixed term. These are cleared centrally and will have a small element of credit risk. These are useful if an organisation is able to access one currency and unable to source another, e. g. the US dollar funding requirements of Irish Banks. †¢ Commercial Paper (CP) and Certificates of Deposit (CD’s) are similar to a cash loans but it can be sold on in the secondary market. This makes them more liquid. All of the above are used to â€Å"square up† a bank’s books on a daily basis. Also banks run gap analysis to reconcile any funding mismatches and close off those gaps if required. This is called liability management. The funding situation would generally have been very fluid. For example, CD’s issued on the day or a large corporate withdrawing a sizeable deposit. The interbank market was the place to lend your excess cash or borrow your shortage and it functioned effectively. This post World War II move to asset driven balance sheets has led to increased focus on liability management. This, aligned with disintermediation, where large corporates bypassed traditional banking methods, led to more innovation in the banking industry. Medium Term Notes (MTNs) and asset securitisation are longer term funding solutions that became more popular in recent times. MTNs can be senior or subordinated debt and are quite flexible for issuer and investor. They usually are for 3 to five years and some may have embedded options. They can have fixed or floating rates and trade on the secondary market. Securitisation involves the packaging of assets into a bond and selling them with the underlying assets as security on the bonds. Typical assets that can be sold this way are mortgages, credit card debt, car loans or student debt. This model was used by Northern Rock (NR) in the UK where they originated mortgages that were then securitised. This enabled them to â€Å"churn† their balance sheet and issue more mortgages. There was an inherent liquidity risk run by NR with this model as their funding was not diversified sufficiently aligned with a failure to realise that market conditions for mortgage backed securities (MBS) would deteriorate in stressed markets. Between issuing a mortgage and securitising it, there will always be a time lag and to cover that NR relied on wholesale interbank funding in the short dates (up to 3 months). This source quickly disappeared as banks pulled any limits. The building society had then to go to their lender of last resort, the Bank of England, and with that news hitting the headlines, ordinary depositors queued up outside branches to get their own money out. This was the first run on a UK bank in 150 years. Eventually NR was taken over by the state. In the context of this case it’s interesting to note that the run was caused by what I would consider â€Å"over-transparency†. The Bank of England had a rule that obliged them to publish the names of institutions that used its liquidity support facility and allied with a lack of satisfactory deposit insurance their depositors took their money and ran. Maybe the rule is not so suitable in these conditions. When Liquidity is Scarce The current crisis we are in the midst of now began in 2007 when sub-prime mortgage bonds became problematic. As well as a regular market for these bonds, a Credit Default Swap (CDS) market also developed. CDS are a derivative that transfers the credit risk of an underlying security, effectively insurance against default. If you bought a bond and also a CDS on that bond, theoretically, you are hedged). The result was that the sub-prime problem had ramifications worldwide. Which banks held sub-prime debt, which institutions had written CDS on s ub-prime debt? Banks may not have any exposure to sub-prime but may well have exposure to banks that had. The international money market was tied together in this crisis. There was a serious lack of transparency of each bank. You couldn’t analyse it latest financial statements and ascertain any given level of risk in a particular area. Money market funds in the US, lenders of cash in the short dates, retrenched. They put their cash into short dated government debt and avoided the interbank market which then froze. There was no liquidity in the market. Confidence was quickly disappearing and if the interbank market loses confidence in an institution, credit lines will be withdrawn, and liquidity will quickly become a major problem. Chart 1 below shows the spread between 3month Euribor* and 3 month Eonia**. In normal functioning markets, these rates should be very similar. They are a measure of the price of liquidity in the markets. As can be seen the correlation is close up to mid ’07. [pic] Chart 1. However in stressed markets you can see what happens. In August ’07 sub-prime became an issue and then again in Sep ’08 when Lehman Brothers failed and once again this summer when the Greek debt crisis began to escalate. The liquidity in European interbank markets was drying up. The above graph represents the â€Å"LIBOR-Eonia† spread and is widely traded in markets now as a hedge against liquidity a crunch. In Ireland in Sept ’08, with the increasing uncertainty of Anglo Irish Banks exposure to the commercial property market, the Irish government has to step in and issue a blanket guarantee on all Irish banks liabilities. [pic] Source Central bank of Ireland. Credit Money Banking Statistics Chart 2. Initially, money flowed into the covered institutions but, as time progressed, the deposits in the Irish banking system left. Chart 2 above shows the more striking movements. I have isolated non-resident deposits. These have fallen by 63% since Oct ’08. Also I have highlighted Irish banks issuance. This falloff shows that the money markets are closed to Irish banks. The modern banks liquidity risk of borrowing short and lending long was crystallizing. Ireland Inc. was losing liabilities. Our loan-to-deposit ratios were deteriorating. Deposit holders moved funds into the AAA rated Rabodirect or elsewhere. Bondholders moved into safer havens such as UK gilts and German Bunds. Further assistance was required for the banks. Central bank intervention began. The ECB began long term refinancing operations (LTRO) where banks could avail of up to 1year cash at the ECB average rate. To avail of the LTRO suitable collateral was required. The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) assisted with emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) when collateral was ineligible for the ECB. Interestingly the CBI would have take massive haircuts on the collateral which was ineligible for ECB, up to 75%, this would put a lot of pressure on deposit gathering resources. This pressure can be seen in the rates Irish banks are paying for deposits currently. Pressure was increasing for banks to rebuild balance sheets and as the ability to acquire liabilities was extremely limited, they began to reduce assets. These disposals took place in distressed and illiquid markets. Efficient markets did not now exist. The management of liquidity was quickly becoming a one-stop shop, the ECB. Liquidity regulations are largely as a result of the recent liquidity crisis. The prudential liquidity assessment review (PLAR) was introduced by the CBI. This has guidelines consistent with Basel III and other relevant measures of high quality funding. These guidelines will require banks to hold large liquidity buffers mainly of cash and highly rated government debt. The measures on Basel III are primarily the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR 2015) and the net stable funding requirement (NFSR 2018). What levels of liquidity required will be based on stress testing the liquidity profile based on a number of stressed liquidity events. LCR covers short term liquidity stresses and will require high quality unencumbered assets. The NFSR covers a stressed period of a year long and would apply haircuts to all asset classes. This liquidity buffer will come at a cost. Holding low yielding government debt and cash incurs opportunity cost. This cost will be allocated on to the business areas in banks that have generated the assets and will eventually lead to higher cost of funds to the borrower. Also there is the developing situation where the availability of high quality bonds may not meet banks liquidity requirements. The Role of Capital Capital is a company’s net assets including all retained earnings and reserves such as loan loss reserves and can be viewed as an organisations’ strength. Capital should be available for any potential losses a bank may incur. There has been a lot of focus on bank capital from Basel I back in the eighties up to Basel III and the EU’s Capital Requirement Directive (CRD IV), which is currently being implemented. Initially capital ratios were focused on Japanese banks that grew to be the biggest in the world. They did so with very low capital bases (approx 2%). The western world viewed this as inequitable and so Basel I was introduced. Basel I introduced the Cooke ratio that defined capital as equity, retained earnings and convertible bonds (hybrids). It also outlined the weightings assigned to loans to calculate capital requirements. Loans to corporates 100% weighting, loans to banks 20% and sovereigns 0% and it set a capital level of 8% of the weighted assets. [pic] The McDonough Ratio was developed in Basel II and refined its predecessor to include new financial instruments used to manage risk in banks. The latest initiatives focus on the appropriate level of capital required for a given level of risk under certain stressed scenarios. Known as regulatory capital, it is difficult to calculate and we can see many examples of this over the recent past. The question I would ask in trying to come up with an appropriate level of capital is â€Å"What are your future losses going to be? † Is this a ridiculous question? The European Banking Authority, in its first two stress tests couldn’t figure it out. Ireland’s two pillar banks passed the first test in July 2010 and Dexia passed in July 2011 (core tier 1 ratio of 10. 4%) only for all to be nationalised soon after. I think the latest stress tests may be getting closer but the current market uncertainties just magnify the problem. What capital will BNP Paribas, holder of â‚ ¬5bn of Greek Bonds, need with Greece government debt receiving a 50% haircut? What will it need if Greece defaults? I can understand the difficulties for the authorities. Also the banking industry is slow to get to the required level. Basel III has a core tier 1 ratio of 10. % but the target date is 2019. What level is enough and could this level be too much? Models using Value at Risk measures will be using data from the most volatile period in history. Could they be overestimating? Capital comes at a cost. Investors require a return and too much capital could lead to slower or more expensive lending which will lead to lower growth and lower profits a nd erosion of share values. Conclusion In this crisis liquidity has been a massive issue. Capital levels have been hot topics for many years but the effects of this credit crunch has highlighted the importance of proper liquidity provisions. If PLAR had been in place for the last 10 years, would the Irish banks have gotten themselves into this position? Not in my opinion. It certainly would have focused the mind on how liquid our booming commercial and residential property portfolios were. It is, however, debatable whether any shock factors to account for the sudden change in Irish banks books would have been incorporated in the risk models used to assess potential liquidity shortages. Banks dependence on short term wholesale funding was a critical fault. There is no doubt that the relevant authorities worldwide did not recognise the risk. Basel III provides for it by 2019! The European Central Bank is not even a lender of last resort for European banks. It is breaking treaty rules currently with its buying of peripheral government bonds. The liquidity issue can also put pressure on perfectly good entities. Unfortunately we now have a situation where disposal of assets in this stressed environment is required to build up required capital and liquidity buffers. Discounts being applied are serious and it is creating a vicious circle of selling assets to create capital while eroding capital as assets are sold cheaper than could be expected. Perhaps the markets were operating too perfectly for too long. Short term wholesale funding was plentiful for a long time and banks got used to it. It made the carry trade (lending long and borrowing short) easy. However as Warren Buffet famously remarked, â€Å"only when the tide goes out, do you learn who has been swimming naked†. However liquidity problems are like smoke and capital problems are the fire. If concerns over a banks’ liquidity arise, it is primarily because there is concern over its capital or its ability to meet any losses.